New form of a dress?

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Image Hermaphroditus – you’ll never guess whose child*

We live in a Post-Gender Age.

Mebbie it is an opportunity to refresh or swell the language? Or, see it as an imperceptible turn of the wheel that rotates in light of there being no new ideas, no original thought? … Nothing new under the sun.

For aeons, Western culture has looked to ancient Greece for intellectually civilizing forms and to the Levant for spiritual leadership. Since 4th century BC, therefore, cultural mores have accommodated notions of there being a balance within every individual of he-ness and she-ness to wit it follows the existential neutrality of It-ness.

Image           a Rick Owens dress

Consulting Monsieur Roget (without a Thesaurus, where would we be?), of the many sections on Relations one is Abstract with sub-sections Identity, Contrariety, Non-&-Uniformity, Difference: but still, unavailable was a word for It-ness.

When two things stand in contrast to one another, there exists in the space between … a something. In terms of humanity and its sense of self, this may be where It-ness is manifest?

For all those who have lived in the shadow of historic binary, the shattering relief their Being is at last acknowledged must echo through them. This is an opportunity for the rest of us to expand the perimeter of thought and consideration: I’m not sure whether LGBTQ communities are peaceful with having a letter for an identifier but at least it starts to recognize the rich spectrum of life. As I’m a newcomer to all this, I intend to listen to know better, ultimately, how to say Hallo.

* Hermes and Aphrodite

Mind and Matter

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Bishop Berkeley, the buoyant, Irish, Enlightenment philosopher was an Idealist positing all that existed was mind and its ideas: matter – substance – he found to be an object of perception. Of course, the thousands of words that clarify and expound this theory you’ll have to wander off to find for yourselves.

It springs to mind in virtue of AL Kennedy’s broadcast on Mindfulness. This concept means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally to increases awareness, clarity and acceptance of the Now.

This is part of what we mean by Listening; naturally we’re delighted acceptance of this branch of thinking has so thoughtful an audience.